Making Aragorn a cold-blooded murderer in the extended version of The Lord of the Rings was one of Peter Jackson's mistakes
Peter Jackson created the brilliant The Lord of the Rings trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, but even he has made mistakes that fans have been unable to forgive him for. One of them is the scene with Aragorn from the extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Although Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is regarded as a faithful adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, even it was not without changes, although these vary depending on the film version. After all, there was more than one, and in addition to the theatrical version, there is also an extended one, enriched from additional scenes, extending the total time of the trilogy from 558 minutes to 683 minutes.
And it was in the extended version that the controversial scene with Aragorn appeared, which puts the character in an unfavorable light. We are talking about the scene with Mouth of Sauron, during which Aragorn decapitates Sauron's messenger. In the book, frightened by the heroes facing him, Mouth of Sauron retreated. No blood was shed. Jackson, however, decided to crank up the scene, forcing Aragorn to take a non-noble action, which, according to fans, does not fit the character.
Mouth of Sauron was not a threat to them, he did not fight them, instead he was the messenger on whom Aragorn committed the war crime in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It doesn't explain him how awful and deceitful things were said by Sauron's messenger – he was still an emissary during the negotiations and attacking him was the wrong move by the character played by Viggo Mortensen, who, after all, wanted to prove that he was different from previous rulers.
Luckily Peter Jackson did not include this scene in the theatrical version and it was only in the extended version. This dramatic scene was not needed in the film, only negatively reflected the message The Lord of the Rings carried – “the end does not justify the means.”
This scene can be considered one of Jackson's stumbles, which awkwardly messed up Aragorn's characterization, which was not well received by The Lord of the Rings fans.